Ed O'Neill admits he had no idea who Britney Spears was when she asked to take a picture with him at the airport

Ed O'Neill may be one of the only people in the world to not recognize Britney Spears.

The 70-year-old Modern Family star recently appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, airing Monday, when he told the hilarious story behind a pic Spears tweeted last March of the two together at Los Angeles International Airport. O'Neill isn't smiling in the snap, which has over 6,500 likes on Twitter.

But the Finding Dory star now admits he didn't know actually know he was taking a picture with the pop superstar.

"I was flying alone to Hawaii. I was waiting for my flight to board," he recalled. "They told me the flight was boarding and I picked up -- that's a little Modern Family hat. I saw a woman approaching me so I just flopped it on, you know, I was leaving. She came up and said, 'Oh, Mr. O'Neill, I love Modern Family, and you're my favorite on the show.' And I was like, 'Well, I'm here, I'm the only one here,'" he joked.

"'Could you please, and I know you're in a hurry...' couldn't have been nicer," O'Neill said about Spears. "So I said, 'Sure, fine, you know, OK.' So she sat there and we took it and I said, 'Have a nice trip, I'm going,' and I left. So the next day my manager texts me and goes, 'What is this? 53,000 likes. It's Britney Spears.'"

Not surprisingly, DeGeneres was incredulous that O'Neill didn't recognize the 34-year-old "Womanizer" singer.

"I mean, look at the look on my face -- do I look like I'm sitting with Britney Spears?" the actor joked. "You know my daughter, Sophia, she said, 'You are a moron.'"

"No one else taking a picture with Britney Spears would have that look on their face," DeGeneres later cracked. "It's fantastic."